Family Law London Blog

A recent bulletin from the Office for National Statistics has presented provisional annual statistics on marriages that took place in England and Wales during 2010.

Key findings of the bulletin include:

• The provisional number of marriages in England and Wales in 2010 increased by 3.7% to 241,100.
• The highest number of marriages were for men and women aged 25 to 29.
• The largest percentage increase in numbers from 2009 to 2010 were for men aged 45 to 49 and women aged 30 to 34, both rising by 6%.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a rise in the number of cohabiting adults in England and Wales. The number of opposite sex cohabiting couple families increased significantly between 2001 and 2011, from 2.1 million to 2.9 million (Families and Households, 2011). Attitudes towards cohabitation have also changed. The 2006 British Social Attitudes survey found two thirds of respondents thought there was ‘little difference socially between being married and living together as a couple’ (Beaujouan and Bhrolcháin, 2011).

The Divorces in England and Wales, 2010 release showed that the percentage of marriages ending in divorce has generally increased for those marrying between the 1970s and the early 1990s. For example, 22% of marriages in 1970 had ended in divorce by the 15th wedding anniversary, whereas 33% of marriages in 1995 had ended after the same period of time. However, there is some evidence that the proportion of marriages ending in divorce had levelled off for couples married in the most recent years.

A woman from Long Island appears to have made legal history by being the first person in the state to be granted a contested no-fault divorce, reports the New York Post.

Previously, in a contested divorce, the partner seeking the divorce had to claim that the breakdown of the marriage was the fault of the other partner e.g. on the grounds of adultery. A legal amendment introduced just over a year ago added a no-fault provision in an attempt to make the divorce process less acrimonious. Under this change, only one partner needed to claim that the marriage had been irretrievably broken for at least six months.

Until now, the provision had only been used in non-contested divorces, however in the case in question, a 79-year-old woman wanted to end her marriage, but her husband didn't. Based on the evidence presented, the judge agreed with the woman that the marriage was irretrievably over, and granted her the divorce despite the objections of her husband.

A recent bulletin from the Office for National Statistics presents annual statistics on divorces that took place in 2010 following court orders, in England and Wales. The figures show that there were 119,589 divorces in England and Wales in 2010, an increase of 4.9%.